The present invention relates generally to optical switching techniques and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus for implementing optical deflection switching using coupled optical waveguide resonators.
Multi-core microprocessor architectures have been developed in order to mitigate increased power dissipation in high-performance computer chips. However, the bandwidth limitations for global electrical interconnections between various cores are rapidly becoming the major factor in restricting further scaling of total chip performance. One approach resolving this interconnect bottleneck is to transmit and route signals in the optical domain, since optical signals can provide both immense aggregate bandwidth and large savings in on-chip dissipated power.
Many existing types of optical switches fall under the category of microelectromechanical (MEMS) devices, in which tiny components such as prisms or mirrors are positionally adjusted in order to redirect input optical signals. However, such MEMS devices are not suited for multi-core chip scaling purposes. On the other hand, the field of integrated optics has expanded tremendously in recent years, and integrated optical device solutions are now being proposed for applications in a variety of fields including, for example, telecommunications, data communications, high performance computing, biological and chemical sensing, and radio frequency (RF) networks.
In this regard, an optical waveguide or combination of optical waveguides may be formed on an integrated circuit (IC) to form devices such as optical resonators, arrayed waveguide gratings, couplers, splitters, polarization splitters/combiners, polarization rotators, Mach-Zehnder (MZ) interferometers, multimode interference waveguides, gratings, mode transformers, delay lines, and optical vias. Such on-chip devices may in turn be used to create an integrated optical circuit or planar light wave circuit that performs one or more optical functions such as, for example: multiplexing/demultiplexing, optical add/drop, variable attenuation, switching, splitting/combining, filtering, spectral analysis, variable optical delay, clock distribution, amplitude/phase modulation, polarization rotation, comb generation, and dispersion compensation.
Although recent advances in silicon nanophotonics has improved the prospects for complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) compatible, on-chip networks for multi-core chips, there is still a need for a broadband, scalable optical switching methodology and structure that has low latency, low power dissipation and high throughput.